How to Read a Rock

About How to Read a Rock

Rocks are time machines and the keepers of our history. This guide is a geological field trip through Earth’s incredible rock formations and the stories they hold

Like rings on a tree stump hold the history of the tree, the history of Earth is written in its rocks. How to Read a Rock: Our Planet’s Hidden Stories teaches readers to decipher the rocks all around us, from backyard stones to mountain ranges, and trace Earth’s history layer by layer.

Spanning from prehistoric Earth’s shifting continents, to contemporary human impact, to the future surfaces of space exploration, the book reviews a remarkable array of topics, including:

• diamond volcanoes

• ancient coastlines, rivers, deserts, and coral reefs

• how animals have changed rocks

• making of mud

• urban rock strata

• human-made rocks and minerals

• current limestone rock crisis

• technofossils (the footprints humans will leave behind through their material goods)